Private Revelation: The Department of the Treasury vs. Hell

One danger of private revelations--even authentic ones--is that they can, like all God's good gifts, become distorted. For some Catholics, devotion to private revelations--and particularly Marian ones--can take unhealthy forms. One of the surprises awaiting an Evangelical coming into the Church is that the danger has never been that of Catholics mistaking Mary for another God. Rather, it’s the danger that some Catholics mistake her for another pope. A certain sort of Catholic can get the notion in his head that the Church is governed, not by the bishops in succession from the apostles and in union with the Pope, but by a series of private revelations from Mary. Such Catholics are often not particularly cautious about distinguishing between public and private revelation, still less about whether a given Marian apparition has been approved by the Church. Indeed, the creepier and more apocalyptic the “revelation,” the more such a Catholic will be certain that its rejection by the Church is a sign of widespread apostasy and imminent doom. So if an alleged seer claims that the pope must define this or that teaching as dogma, or tells Catholics to save up beeswax candles to prepare themselves for the Three Days of Darkness that are just around the corner, the apparition enthusiast may regard it as a judgment on the pope—not on the reality of the “vision”—if the pope doesn’t salute smartly and do whatever the latest visionary is demanding.

This is, however, to fundamentally ignore what the Church has always taught with the authority of Christ. A Marian private revelation is no more binding on the pope than it is binding on any other Catholic. The governance of the Church remains the task of the Church’s Christ-appointed governors, the bishops. Mary does not supersede them in their proper role—and authentic Marian apparitions never try to do so. If the Magisterium judges a Marian revelation to be “worthy of belief,” the Holy Father or the bishops may well act in accordance with it (as, for instance, when Our Lady of Guadalupe requested the building of a church and Our Lady of Fatima requested the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart). But in such cases, the Magisterium is still left to rule the Church according to Scripture and sacred Tradition. It’s not obliged to practice “government by apparition,” and apparition enthusiasts greatly overstep the limits of the faith when they declare a pope or bishop “apostate” because he’s failed to mirror their own level of enthusiasm.

This basic counsel to trust the Holy Spirit through the Church comes hard for many people. And it manifests itself in different ways. Some people believe in every apparition claim that comes down the pike and run way ahead of the Church in their search for the Latest Thing. The spectrum can be wide in such matters. Some people are the type who immediately rush off to pray the Rosary and light candles to water stains on a highway underpass in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Others are not so credulous, but are still given to declaring that a popular apparition claim has been “approved by the Church” when the jury is still out.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion about an apparition claim that’s still under investigation by the Church. Well before the Church rendered an official judgment, seventy thousand eyewitnesses to the Miracle of the Sun formed sudden and extremely definite opinions about the validity of the claims of the children at Fatima on October 13, 1917. But it does mean that our opinions must remain subordinate to the judgment of Holy Church, which has been entrusted by Christ with the task of discerning such matters. So, for instance, many people have strong views, both pro and con, about some alleged apparition. The sensible thing to do about such disputed claims is wait until the Church decides. Otherwise, we can find that our passions become so engaged in defending our pet views that, should the Church rule against us, we end up placing our personal view of private revelation over the Church’s rightful authority and condemning the Church for its “erroneous” approval or disapproval.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the “signs and wonders” enthusiasts are some Christians whose paranoia about satanic trickery is so overwhelming that they spend all their time studying the darkness and never looking at the light. They spend so much time fretting about what various occultists, quacks, charlatans, false prophets, fake gurus, and bogus seers are saying or doing that they never pay attention to what the Church is saying. They chart vast webs of shadowy conspiracy like characters on the X-Files and, in the process, completely forget to read Scripture, attend to the teaching of the Church, or practice the faith. Indeed, they become so filled with fear that they abandon trust in anybody but themselves and their labyrinthine conspiracy theories. In their impossible effort to save themselves from the devil they end up playing right into his hands, rejecting the judgment of the Magisterium (“I read somewhere that the Vatican has been infiltrated by the Freemasonic Rosicrucian Brotherhood of Luciferian Templars!”), and even leaving the Body of Christ. That is a quick ticket to becoming not only apostate, but quite mad.

In contrast to these foolish and fearful approaches is the basic method of the Church, which takes a page from the Treasury Department. The problem facing treasury agents is the same problem facing the Christian: there are a lot of counterfeits out there. But the Treasury Department doesn’t train its agents to know what thousands of different counterfeits look like. It trains them to know what a real bill looks like. When you know that, a phony is immediately obvious, no matter what it looks like. In the same way, Jesus teaches his sheep to recognize not the voice of every conceivable false prophet, but his voice. That way, “the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:4–5).

The surest way to “abide in Christ” and remain close to the heart of the Father who leads us not into temptation but delivers us from evil is to know and live the Catholic faith. As Jesus promises, “Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Matt. 7:24–25).

Comments

If some folks in these blogs can channel Sister Kozlowska, and become amaneuensis for Michael Archangel, then everything and anything is possible in the web…sedevancatism is a 20th C apparition of a chronic infection of scrupulosis piaristis..

CL

Posted by Craig Roberts on Tuesday, Mar 18, 2014 4:45 PM (EDT):

@Joyrunr
Thanks for the nice comment. Keep up the good work and the Holy Spirit will provide the increase!

Posted by Joyrunr on Tuesday, Mar 18, 2014 12:43 PM (EDT):

Craig ~ I love your comment. As a devout wannabe I see the honesty in your comment. We are weird and we are very enthusiastic about all of this stuff! We have found what truly pleases our Loving Lord and are happy to share and be diligent in those ways!

But additionally, we are concerned about all of the souls that our Loving Lord created. And we know that if it wasn’t for the grace of God their we would still be on the other side of this knowledge. I was lifted out of the dark pit before being brought to the Way, Truth and Life!

We are driven by compassion for souls and this enthusiasm to run back into town after encountering Christ at the well!

Join the weirdness if you haven’t pay no attention to the waves. Just keep your eyes on the Lord, Jesus Christ!

Posted by Mary A. Cole on Monday, Mar 17, 2014 8:07 PM (EDT):

I do not know who the “you” in your comment is referring to. I have never heard of the sedevacanists. So have never thought anything about it. However, it sounds like another means to get people on a tangent away from what is central truth. This reminds me of another book by C.S. Lewis: _The Great Divorce_ which is fiction about a chance for some in Hell to visit Heaven. Those who make the trip each have a reason why they did not like it and did not want to stay. One that I remember had always enjoyed debating about various questions. In Heaven there were no questions left. He could not enjoy living without questions to debate.

Posted by TeaPot562 on Monday, Mar 17, 2014 7:41 PM (EDT):

Love that description of the “Freemasonic Rosicrucian Brotherhood of Luciferian Templars”.
One development of the last half-century that perplexes me is the emergence of some people called “sedevacanists?” who hold that popes elected since the death of Pius XII (Or maybe John XXIII) were not valid popes. This is equivalent to holding that the Holy Spirit guided the Church all the way from Pentecost up to 1958 (or maybe 1964), then disappeared.
I consider their position incredible - beyond worthy of consideration for belief. How can they believe that?
What do you think?

Posted by Mary A. Cole on Monday, Mar 17, 2014 7:04 PM (EDT):

Back to Mark Shea’s discussion of private revelation which has led some Catholics into extremes of one variety or another. His article reminded me of C.S. Lewis’s book _The Screwtape Letters_ which is fiction about how the devil and his helpers attempt to lead individuals away from the truth. If that fails, then the effort is to lead them into error after they find the truth. False revelations are only one of many means to that end. We need to be examining ourselves and seeking sound teaching to correct our own walk. We need to encourage sound teaching and writing so that others can do the same. This is spiritual warfare and we must use spiritual weapons to successfully engage in it. Myself, I went on some strange tangents as I sought the truth after I became a Christian. Continuing to seek for the truth eventually led me to the Roman Catholic Church.

Posted by Howard on Sunday, Mar 16, 2014 11:57 PM (EDT):

@Tom in AZ—Let’s keep the distinction clear between our neighbors, whom we are commanded to love, and their errors, which we must hate for the sakes of our neighbors. Moving on, you say that Freemasons “are indistinguishable in ideas from Mormons or the mainstream of Jewish theology.” That would imply that Mormon and Jewish theology are also indistinguishable from each other, which would probably come as quite a shock to both groups. Let me cut to the chase here: Freemasonry teaches religious indifference as a path to pantheism, Mormonism teaches a very odd form of polytheism, and Judaism teaches a non-trinitarian monotheism. Theologically, these are all quite distinct, in spite of numerous overlaps and historical relationships. The higher degrees of Freemasonry also oaths, invoking God, to invite murder. Most American Freemasons surely do not make this oath in earnest; that is better than being serious about the oath, but it does require being too casual about oaths invoking God. As has been written before, a Freemason cannot be a Catholic in good standing for the same reason a Buddhist cannot be a Catholic in good standing: they are different religions. So Freemasonry is a real and persistent SPIRITUAL problem. They are not, however, much of a SPIRITUAL problem, any more than the Ku Klux Klan (which they created) is. However, modernism gave rise to Freemasonry, and modernism remains both a spiritual and a political problem.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Sunday, Mar 16, 2014 9:17 PM (EDT):

@Howard: The “Mormon firefighter” example is, in fact, my point. Since we do not pretend that Mormons or Jews are intrinsically our enemies, we probably shouldn’t pretend it of Freemasons, who are indistinguishable in ideas from Mormons or the mainstream of Jewish theology. Actually of the three, modern Freemasons are probably the least likely to be anti-Catholic, at least outside of Latin America.
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Certainly someone who does not know anything about Hermeticism should not “embrace” the ideas of Freemasonry; they probably shouldn’t have anything to do with rabbis, either. There are the fingerprints of Kabbalah’s analysis on pretty much every “Bible code” crank ever to come down the pike. Currently, those “Bible codes” are a bigger threat to Christianity—in the form of the rightly-deserved ridicule they attract, while being associated with the name of Christ—than Freemasonry has been for about half a century, EVEN in Latin America.
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My point is that there is nothing special about Freemasonry; nothing about them that doesn’t go just as strongly against Mormons, Jews, and numberless other people who have simply fallen for the Western world’s oldest brand of snake-oil (Hermeticism dates to the time of Alexander the Great; it’s re-issued, wrapped in the current buzzwords, once every century or three). The current (post-Mormon) crop are all much, much worse than Freemasons—the 20th century brand of Hermeticism was Scientology, and the 21st is Trans-Humanism. They both make Freemasons look like Quakers.

Posted by Howard on Sunday, Mar 16, 2014 2:46 PM (EDT):

@Gabriel—Heaven knows I’ve had my differences with Mark Shea, but he did not give a “belated” “nod to orthodoxy”, as you say.

Posted by Howard on Sunday, Mar 16, 2014 2:11 PM (EDT):

@Tom in AZ: “Do we or do we not consider Mormons potential allies?” That question is completely without meaning absent any context. Do I think that Mormons are “natural allies” of the Catholic Church? Of course not. Mormons are not even heretics, because only Christians can be heretics. Do some bishops think otherwise? Obviously. If my house were on fire, would I object to a Mormon firefighter putting out the flames? Obviously not. But your argument holds no water. A member of the SS (up to the point that organization ceased to exist), who had used slave labor to build the V-2, was directly responsible for the American space program. Does that mean that I have to embrace the ideology of the SS as perfectly safe and no threat at all? God forbid!

Posted by Gabriel on Sunday, Mar 16, 2014 1:16 AM (EDT):

Dear Mark, I think, if you reflect calmly on it, you might apply your words about me to yourself in your description of me as being involved in an “inquisitional attempt to read my mind, heart, and soul.” As far as I can see, my comments served to bring up important aspects of Catholic thought that you tend to consistently ignore for whatever reason. This is why one could wonder why rather than discussing the things I brought up more deeply, you choose to comment on me. I would encourage you to reflect on all of this. I am not your enemy.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Saturday, Mar 15, 2014 5:45 PM (EDT):

@Howard: Do we or do we not consider Mormons potential allies? Well Mormons are the exact same thing as Freemasonry—Hermeticism—and unlike Freemasons, they don’t actually believe in God (Mormonism’s “Heavenly Father” is actually the Primordial Man of the Gnostics, they don’t have even a pantheistic form of what actual Christians call God). Anti-Catholicism in LDS circles is still going strong, most modern Freemasons (except for some in “Latin” countries) are neutral to benign toward us.
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While we’re at it, if Freemasonry’s ideas in themselves are such a threat, we probably need to knock off the friendly overtures to Jews, too—since the majority school of Jewish theology is, hey guess what, HERMETICISM, just like the Freemasons. You did know that mainstream Jewish theology is Kabbalah, right? Admittedly not Madonna Kabbalah, but still Hermetic emanationist pantheism (the Hasidim even believe all their rabbis are divine emanations). All Jews other than the Talmide ha-Rambam (Maimonideans), who are Scholastic Aristotelians, are in the same philosophical tradition as the Freemasons.
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The fact of the matter is that, other than orthodox Christians, everyone in the West—including many “mainstream” Protestants—that isn’t explicitly an atheist (and sometimes even then, read Arthur C. Clarke) is a type of pantheist virtually indistinguishable from Freemasonry. Why particularly pick on the Freemasons, over things they neither wish to do nor are able to do anymore?

Posted by Mark Shea on Saturday, Mar 15, 2014 4:52 PM (EDT):

Gabriel: I appreciate your inquisitional attempt to read my mind, heart, and soul for telltale traces of impurity, but really, that’s what the Holy Spirit’s job is, so you can hang up your spurs. One would think that since I have taken well nigh two months to write about the importance of private revelation, that might be a hint that I think private revelation is important and that I would not have to write out a profession of faith to satisfy you, Your Honor. If I wanted to simply urge people to throw out private revelation, I would have simply done so. All other readers seem to be able to grasp that my purpose here is to point out 1) that private revelation is a real gift from God; 2) that it must by submitted to the discernment of the Church; and 3) that it cannot supercede or replace either public revelation or the Magisterium. It’s not super-complicated. It’s also what CCC 67 says. Thanks thogh for stooping down from Olympus and graciously granting that I “nod to Catholic orthodoxy”. I am unworthy of such favors from my natural superiors.

Posted by LarryB on Saturday, Mar 15, 2014 4:26 PM (EDT):

Thanks for writing this. Ill forward it to my mom. It might save her from spending more on bees wax candles and passing them out to friends.

Posted by Joyrunr on Saturday, Mar 15, 2014 1:11 PM (EDT):

This really was a very good analysis of the extremes on both ‘sides’ of the issue. I am a Charismatic Catholic and also an Opus Dei Catholic. To some that might seem a contradiction. But the Truth is a wider brush than most would allow. The Church follows the absolute Truth that allows for both movements of the Holy Spirit. I personally have reserved my judgment and discernment on the issue of visionaries with the Church. They alone have the authority to bind and loose what is Truth and what is not. If the Church claims it is ‘kosher’ who are you to claim it isn’t? If the Church claim’s it is a counterfeit or is still in the process of discernment of Truth who are you to declare that they are too slow or in error because you have decided? By who’s authority do you judge those that Christ, Himself, breathed on with His authority as the Son of God, the Holy Spirit in the upper room? The humility of all of the saint of the past are our greatest example of patient trust in Christ’s leadership through the one, holy, catholic, apostolic, Church. His Bride and our Holy Mother Church. All for Him! Joyrunr

Posted by Gladys H. Mariani on Saturday, Mar 15, 2014 12:31 PM (EDT):

Excellently and elegantly put. Thank-you!

Posted by Jon W on Saturday, Mar 15, 2014 12:20 PM (EDT):

A few years ago a friend of mine and I accidentally wandered into a meeting of Freemasons at a hotel. It was a bunch of old guys standing around talking who instantly and desperately pounced on the young man (me) who looked like a likely candidate for joining.

I’m not saying Freemasonry as a philosophy and pseudo-religion isn’t a problem, just that by that incident they didn’t seem to represent any all-powerful cabal. Like the Knights of Columbus, they were desperate for some under-60 blood to keep them from extinction.

Posted by Gabriel on Saturday, Mar 15, 2014 11:46 AM (EDT):

Looking at your last article and this present article on private revelations, I would make this observation. In your last article on this topic you conceded quite late in the day (reluctantly it would seem) something that you had completely ignored in the original article. You stated, “As B16 reminds us Paul says ‘Despise not prophesying’. Private revelation is given us for our good.” This belated nod to Catholic orthodoxy was good to read though you then quickly moved on to this new article which again is so preoccupied with extremists that you in effect practically undermine your own belated advice of “not throwing out the baby with the bathwater” by discarding all private revelation. Your attitude still needs a genuine rethink on this issue to really correspond to the practice of our recent Popes, most notably, but not only, on Fatima.

Posted by Howard on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 9:42 PM (EDT):

@Tom in AZ—It’s one thing for a country to move from enemy to friend, but it is something else for an idea to move from dangerous to safe. The latter takes much longer, if it ever really happens. Maybe, *maybe* that happened to a certain extent with Greek mythology; Dante was able to use it in the Divine Comedy because no one worshipped Jove anymore. Freemasonry as an idea remains dangerous, though. (That’s not to say that many American Freemasons are serious enough to be real threats today.)

Posted by Tom in AZ on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 7:04 PM (EDT):

@Don’t scoff: Leo XIII feared the threat of Freemasonry because in the 19th century, Freemasons were a threat. Given the specific individuals involved (e.g., Peron cronies), Propaganda Due appears to have been more a last gasp of Fascism than anything else; it was also at least a little associated with the Mafia (which is why secret societies are illegal in Italy in the first place). But for the most part, nowadays, the guy that used to be involved in Masonic conspiracies becomes a Marxist or some sort of fellow-traveler. Freemasons in most of the world are NOW about as big a problem as alchemists—if anything, since they are at least non-demoninationally religious (atheists are forbidden from joining), they may be an ally (in some circumstances—probably still not, in “Latin” countries—and always very tentatively).
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The threats change. Don’t fight yesterday’s war today, that’s how you lose today’s war. England was America’s enemy, to varying degrees, right up till the very eve of World War I. Now they’re our closest ally. Two of our other close allies are Japan and Germany. If you’d told someone in 1943 that that would be the case, he’d laugh in your face (hell, China and Russia were our allies, then—though they shouldn’t have been as close of allies as they were).

Posted by Don't scoff on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 4:57 PM (EDT):

Pope Leo XIII feared the threat of Freemasonry enough that he wrote several encyclicals warning about its dangers.

As for a well documented case of Masonic infiltration of the Church, one needs to look no further than the infamous Propaganda Due (P2) Lodge scandal. No kooky, conspiracy theories necessary.

Once should certainly be aware of these things, but not let them detract from the Glory of God.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 3:46 PM (EDT):

@Mariclare: Whether or no Mark missed the point of Fatima, you certainly missed the point of his remarks about it.

Posted by Mariclare on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 1:39 PM (EDT):

The danger you mention is present in both public and private revelation. Heresy began soon after the ascension.

The point of Fatima was to warn the faithful. Remember, the miracle was done “so that all would believe”. I think you miss the point. Yes, it’s true that all are not bound to believe but our attention should be given to our Lady’s message. She’s trying to tell us something. If all we take away from that is the fact that we don’t HAVE to listen then that’s just sad.

Posted by Rob B. on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 12:11 PM (EDT):

“I read somewhere that the Vatican has been infiltrated by the Freemasonic Rosicrucian Brotherhood of Luciferian Templars!”

Sounds like some of the rad-trads I’ve interacted with online. :) I’ve even heard one that says that the last survivor of the Fatima children was replaced by a double by John Paul II…

Posted by Dixibehr on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 11:49 AM (EDT):

Excellent article! I’ve repeatedly said that I don’t believe in the Magisterium of Private Revelations.

Posted by Bill Laudeman on Friday, Mar 14, 2014 11:23 AM (EDT):

I liked your analogy of false teachings-to-counterfeit money. But in fact it may be even more profound than you indicate, because many heresies are quite subtle, and even experts can be fooled. Often an attractive heresy has to be confounded by an entire panel of experts, or by a truly gifted theologian. Not all of us can detect these counterfeits!

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About Mark Shea

Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.